Literacy skills of students in primary and middle school development was the main objective of our project . The project partners had agreed that it was an important issue and had been aimed to develop skills, transferable in comprehending written text, processing it and using the reading material to give a creative output. The participants of the project were: Sakala Eragumnaasium (Tallinn, Estonia), Hristo Botev Primary School (Sliven,Bulgaria), Scoala Gimnaziala Nr.1 Gura Humorului ( Gura Humorului, Romania), P.E.I González Valverde S.L.L ( Murcia, Spain). The schools involved in the project are both municipal and private,and include students of various cultural and social backgrounds. The theme of the project, Sharing Legends and Myths,was considered as appropriate and beneficial to all participants and empowering the teachers to effectively involve their students into the learning process, thus improving not only their literacy but foreign language skills as the project was run in English. Students were involved in researching the legends of their countries and producing their own creative output after having understood the reading material (translations into English and native languages,making presentations, creating comics and sketches), through which objectives of the project were achieved. Students of all partner schools shared their creative outputs with the international audiences. Doing so, they increased their interest in reading and processing the information in the foreign language. Information regarding the flow of the project and part of the creative outputs were exchanged through the project website available to all participants at any time and will still remain open for public use during 2 more years after the end of the project. The partner schools had 4 meetings where the students of the host schools had a chance to hear the legends presented and taught by guest-teachers from partner schools. Throughout the project, the students were developing communication, IT, and writing skills, gained new factual knowledge and valuable experiences and competences. The partner meetings were also beneficial for the teachers. They provided the counterparts with great opportunities: to co-teach, give each other feedback and exchange methodology concerning literacy skills development. During their visits, the colleagues observed each others' lessons, implemented theoretical ideas in practical lessons based on the legends; discussed the adjustments to be made to teaching the legends in particular environments . The above-mentioned enabled the teachers to create an online- accessible Teaching Kit which has appeared to be useful for all the teachers who have applied it internationally being interested in literacy skills development. Final products include: - Magazine based on comics on the national legends, -Teaching Kit containing lessons based on national legends translated into English ,- Video recording of teachers' performance in the internationally staged play,-Web-quest based on national legends, -Booklet with legends translated into English and adapted to the use in classes by the teachers' team . All these materials will be available and beneficial for further use by partner schools as well as other educational institutions and libraries. To sum up, the most significant aim of the project was to advance students' literacy skills as a result of working out good teaching practices and methods. Besides, the legends which teaching is supposed to be based on are and will always be up-to-date, which will give the project outcome a longer life and dissemination.

The initiative of this application is part of a broader international movement, which seeks to provide guidance and operationalize strategic actions capable of protecting the oceans. The United Nations Organization (UN), in its 2030 agenda, defined 17 objectives for sustainable development of the planet, among which is the objective 14 “Protect marine life”. For the development of this objective, UNESCO's work was also associated with the definition of 7 principles that promote ocean literacy. It is our intention to operationalize the following principles from UNESCO: Principle 2. The Ocean and marine life have a strong action on the Earth dynamics; Principle 5.The Ocean supports an immense diversity of life and ecosystems; Principle 6.The Ocean and humanity are strongly interconnected.For the teaching of ocean literacy, schools must develop activities linked to the curriculum, aligning them with the programmatic content of each subject area. We intend to contribute to the development of critical and reflective students, capable of dealing with the challenges of today's society. Our priority issue is: “What trash do we find on the beaches near us? What are the consequences of this waste on marine ecosystems and on humans? ”. The specific objectives are:- Promote sustainable actions for the conservation and preservation of the oceans in conjunction with the curriculum of various disciplines in different teaching cycles;- Develop ocean literacy by presenting solutions;- Combining ocean literacy with STEAM;- Collect natural and unnatural material on visited beaches, in order to proceed to the observation / analysis / classification / comparison / establishment of conclusions about the material collected;- Streamline laboratory activities based on elements collected from field trips, proceeding with data processing;- Streamline artistic activities, transforming the garbage into art;- Participate in environmental activism actions;- Develop awareness raising actions to local community promoting the oceans protection;- Work on reading as a transversal domain of the curriculum, combining it with other forms of expression;- Produce support materials;- Disseminate the work creating training actions for teachers.The pedagogical teams of each partner school, since they integrate teachers from different levels of education and from different subjects, will create a set of activities that aim to promote ocean literacy in a holistic way and with different levels of deepening. The principles of the ocean to be worked on will be articulated from different perspectives: environmental, civic, artistic, literary, cultural, biological, chemical / physical and mathematical. Our activities are organized around 5 large clusters:- Experimental activities with and without field trips;- Environmental activism activities (“Ecological Brigades”);- Innovative artistic activities (artistic objects from the garbage collected);- Awareness-raising activities;- Training (teacher training to disseminate good practices).To take students to action, we intend to carry out field work, using laboratory and other experiments. These, based on the STEAM and Project Based Learning methodology, will allow students to carry out “in loco” collection of data and materials that allow a comparative analysis.The results expected are:- Formation of pedagogical teams, promoting the vertical and holistic articulation of the curriculum;- Design and development of training actions;- Development of a common program, applicable in the future, including a resource base;- Promotion of multiliteracy using different digital tools and producing by-products;- Creation of a collective e-book translated into all languages of the partners;- Realization of 1 workshop, in all partner schools, for transforming garbage into art;- Participation in environmental activism activities: 1 collection of marine litter + 1 awareness campaign with the local community.The school’s long-term benefit from this project will be an extended curriculum about ocean literacy. Active methodologies are also promoted and work is being done in conjunction with the objectives of the UN and UNESCO for the decade about the sustainability of the oceans. Throughout the project we use tools (Google Earth and Marine LitterWatch - a project developed by the EEA - European Environment Agency), that contribute to the international sharing of data.The activities foreseen in this project will continue to be operated mainly in science and mathematics, as they address contents that are part of the curriculum. We intend to share these lesson plans and examples of their implementation with the educational community, with a view to replicating them.The work networks established with stakeholders (Universities, specialists in the area, Institutes and Associations), throughout the project, are extremely important, and the continuity of this collaborative work is expected.

More than a decade since the 2006 Recommendation in a radically changed world, the Commission proposes a revision of the European Reference Framework for Key Competences, as those required today have changed; international data indicate a constantly high proportion of adolescents and adults with insufficient basic skills. It is therefore more important than ever to invest in basic skills. Among the main objectives the European Commission highlights the following:to support the development of entrepreneurial skills to develop essential skills and attitudes, including creativity, initiative, teamwork, an understanding of risk and a sense of responsibilityThe partner schools have intended to respond to this need by structuring a work that uses the Spirit of initiative and entrepreneurship as a driving force to develop the other key competences.The partner schools are 5: these are generalistic institutes, 4 are public and one is a private school (Estonia).Approximately 1200 students will be involved out of 2100 students attending, of which about 200 with fewer opportunities, from infant, primary and secondary level, between 3 and 14 years of age; schools from France and Estonia, without infant school, will involve children aged 7 and up. 80 student mobilities will be carried out (including at least 20 students with fewer opportunities) with ages between 9 and 14 years. The teachers involved will be about 90 out of 236, 60 the planned mobilities.There will be 5 Joint Staff Training Events contemporaneously with 5 Exchanges of groups of pupils with the following order: France, Spain, Poland, Italy, Estonia.The idea of ​​the project is to simulate the creation and management of micro-enterprises in various sectors of activity:1) primary sector (farms, plant nurseries, floriculture)2) secondary sector (local crafts)3) tertiary sector (trade, tourism, other services)The teaching methodology identified is that of Project Based Learning, as it is designed to put each student in a student-worker condition, learning to collaborate, to think critically, to communicate effectively both orally and in writing.The activities are divided into 4 blocks, each led by a partner and ends with the international mobility hosted by the latter.The first block is related to the primary sector (agriculture) led by Spain.The second is related to the primary sector (plant nurseries and floriculture) led by PolandThe third is related to the secondary sector (crafts) led by ItalyThe fourth is related to the tertiary sector (tourist activities, eg hotels, b & b, restaurants, etc) and is led by EstoniaFinally, the French school will lead the cross-cutting thematic block, related to the management of a small business travel and tourism promotion agency, which will promote the local territory of each of the participating partner countries.At each international meeting, each partner will show the activity to others and take part in the activities proposed by the other ones.During the international meetings, we will share the Evaluation Report and the Good Practices Manual and revise the budget management.The central objective of the project consists in the research of teaching methodologies and strategies to allow young people, with particular regard to those in disadvantaged situations, to develop the key competences indicated by the EU. It is also proposed to improve the quality of early childhood education, as specialist studies show that this favors the whole process of lifelong learning, and allows to reach higher levels of competences, especially on pupils in clear disadvantged situations.The concrete results that we aim to produce are:1) raising the levels of competence in pupils (to be measured with common and shared evaluation rubrics)2) reduction of the statistical dispersion of the levels of competence and decrease of the percentage of students in the lower levels3) equip teachers with teaching tools aimed at improving key competences, summarized in a Manual of Good PracticesThe organizations will also have at their disposal the Evaluation Report on the results, the website, the channels on social networks, the project material on the E-twinning portal.In the longer term, the partner schools are expected to register: increase of pupils motivation, increase of teachers' professionalism, integration in the school curriculum of the good practices of the project, improvement of the image of the school and its attractiveness to the outside.The partners intend to continue the activity of experimentation and exchange of good practices, after the conclusion of the project, activating E-Twinnings, to deepen the most promising themes or to correct those that appeared less effective.